


The X-Men can't even

by trombonistnicole



Category: X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt, Gen, Hurt, No Dialogue, Short One Shot, emotional breakdowns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-25
Updated: 2017-04-25
Packaged: 2018-10-23 21:52:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10727976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trombonistnicole/pseuds/trombonistnicole
Summary: The X-Men fall apart.





	The X-Men can't even

    When Erik returned from his “vacation,” (more like a fruitless search for any remnants of the Brotherhood) the school was seemingly doing much better. The mansion looked roughly the same as it had prior to the explosion, as it was now fully decorated and all the students had moved back in. And even the younger kids had already recovered from the trauma of the explosion.

    But he could tell that the children, the ones who fought En Sabah Nur, the new “X-Men” were worse for wear. Raven did not notice the difference, as they neither voiced their problems nor expressed them in behavior.

    Erik could see it in their eyes and in their posture.

    Jean's body was ramrod straight, dark circles were poorly hidden by makeup under her eyes and she blinked longer and more frequently, as if trying to suppress tears. Scott constantly ran a finger along the bottom of his glasses to as if to catch tears and his shoulders were hunched. Kurt seemed especially jumpy, teleporting away whenever he was surprised or scared, and the tint under his eyes suggested that he slept about as well as Jean. Storm carried herself tall and proud, but it was obvious that all she wanted to do was run and hide. Peter still cracked jokes, but his smiles were plastic and his eyes bore a thousand yard stare.

    But Raven kept pushing and pushing, and Erik idly wondered who would break first.

    Unsurprisingly, it was Jean. One day in training, her eyes went white and she collapsed, sobbing uncontrollably. The training session had to be stopped, as the entire team was more concerned about comforting her than about the giant robots assaulting them, and Raven didn't actually want any of them to get injured. When they managed to move her to Charles's office, he put on his professor face and promptly forbade her from attending training for at least two weeks. Charles lost a considerable amount of sleep trying to soothe her nightmares.

    The next one down was Kurt. He took an energy blast to the tail. Afterwards, when talking to Hank about his injuries, Hank said that he could have lost his tail altogether had the blast been at full power and Kurt instantly vanished to his room, from which he only emerged for food.

    Scott's reaction came next and was by far the most dramatic. In a bout of tears, he removed his glasses to wipe his eyes and accidentally blasted a rather large hole in his wall. After that, he stopped denying his problems and joined Professor Xavier's Class for Traumatized Youngsters.

    Storm had the least dramatic reaction. One day, she just stopped attending training, although she and Peter were the only ones left, and was found in her room, crying. 

    Peter never broke. It was clear that he had been worn down, but there was never a specific incident that marked the day when he lost it. Raven's training sessions were few and far between now, and they all ended quickly, as Peter had figured out how to dismantle the robots (hint: there were switches on their necks). Peter wore pure exhaustion on his face and his eyes were getting red around the edges more and more.

    Raven watched as her new team, the same team that had eagerly listened to her pep talk and begun training excitedly, the same team that fought En Sabah Nur as though they had been doing it their whole lives, the same team that was composed of nothing but children, fell to pieces. She watched each individual child losing their minds and watched each of them shatter, but she only saw it when it was too late.

    Really, they shouldn't be rebuilding the X-Men with traumatized children and a tired to the point of emotional collapse young adult.

    The X-Men were dead, their ideal burned with Alex, their hope buried with Sean. The X-Men could not be rebuilt like this.

    And Erik didn't know if they ever could.


End file.
